


Fort Griffith, Texas

by Truth



Category: Tombstone (1993)
Genre: Drinking, Gambling, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-14
Updated: 2010-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:32:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,541
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Truth/pseuds/Truth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It wasn’t much of a story, Doc.  ‘I was a dentist, but there’s more enjoyment, and more money, to be found in gambling.’  Come on.  There’s got to be more to it than that.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fort Griffith, Texas

**Author's Note:**

  * For [alexcat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alexcat/gifts).



A saloon was one of the first signs of a town that had money to spend. Sometimes it’d be nothing more than rotgut served by the mug out of the back of a wagon by a man with a fewer teeth than most’d figure necessary. Sometimes you’d find a grand building with a false front and a polished bar; rows of bottles visible to choose from and proportionately inflated prices. The man behind the bar would have a white, starched shirt and vest and possibly an apron.

Ends of the spectrum, mayhap, but anywhere you found men with coin to spend at the end of a long and thirsty day, you’d find someone willing to take it from them. Strong drink was the preferred method, but anywhere you found liquor, you’d find gambling and, sure as the alcohol drew gamblers, the money drew whores.

It made for a cozy atmosphere, as liquor also brought violence and gambling brought cheats and the whores brought a whole variety of amusements, amongst them another kind of cheating altogether. There was no sin that couldn’t be had for the asking, or for the right price.

The melodrama came free.

Entertainment in these places ranged from pretty women without the socially appropriate amount of clothing to the occasional piano player. Really, the only thing promised by the word ‘saloon’ was the liquor and the company of other people who shared an interest in the drinking of it.

Wyatt Earp wasn’t a man who sought a saloon for the liquor within it, or not for serious drinking. He was a man with an eye to the main chance, someone who saw a saloon as an investment. It was a place to socialize; to spend a little money in order to make a great deal later down the line. When you’ve been arrested as many times as Wyatt had, or made as many, you find that you have friends in all sorts of interesting places, and hard drink is a fine equalizer.

Of course, you’ll also have enemies in all those same, interesting places, but that’s a story for another time.

One of Wyatt’s friends was a pugilist, a man Wyatt met while serving as a referee. Now retired, Mr. John Shanssey, owned a saloon in Texas. That’s not all that he did, but that’s the only bit important to our story.

Fort Griffin was the home of Mr. Shanssey and his saloon and Wyatt found himself there one fine evening, exploring the more precise points of the fine game of poker. The life and times of Wyatt Earp, lawman, are fairly well documented. Less well-known are his exploits as a gambler, saloon-keeper and frequenter of brothels, but they make for a far more interesting story.

So here rests our hero, peacefully gambling away his funds, involved in a titanic struggle of wills with lady luck. It’s rude to interrupt a gentleman’s communion with a lady, but there’s always someone willing to cut in.

“Wyatt, I’ve got someone I’d like you to meet.”

“Not now, John.” Wyatt was frowning at his cards. “I call.”

Cards were shown and the pot was drawn across the table, away from Wyatt’s three aces and toward a flush.

“Was that a hand worth making a man wait?”

“Now, Doc –“

Wyatt looked up, irritation plain to see. “And who might you be?”

“Someone who knows better than to bet so highly on a mere three aces.” There was a sparkle to the eyes of the stranger, and a quirk to one corner of his mouth. He was young, possibly older than he looked, but the impression was one of youth. The way he drawled the words was a challenge, and it was one Wyatt was quick to meet.

“Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is, stranger?”

“Wyatt, Doc….” John held up his hands and tried to get between them, but they continued to watch each other with no attention to spare for him. “Damn it, this is my saloon and I’d like to get this introduction over with before you two become mortal enemies.”

“Well?” The stranger made an elegant gesture with one hand, inviting the man to continue.

“Thank you. Wyatt, this here’s John Holliday, but most just call him Doc. Doc, Wyatt Earp.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.” The small smile and the drawl made the statement seem less than entirely honest. He didn’t pause for a response, continuing, “Mr. Shanssey offered an introduction, possibly an attempt at distraction. He was losing his shirt at the time.”

“Hey now, Doc. That’s hardly fair!”

Doc waved a hand dismissively. “The promised introduction has been made. Run along.”

John rolled his eyes and offered Wyatt an apologetic shrug.

“Thanks, John. Really,” Wyatt said.

He watched as Doc appropriated an empty chair and made himself at home across the wide table. Several of the other players gathered their money and departed with more haste than politeness. It didn’t seem to bother the new player in the slightest. Resting his cane against the edge of the table, he gestured for a drink.

“Well then,” he addressed Wyatt, still showing that small, wicked smile. “Shall we play?”

Seven hands later, two more players quit the table, leaving Doc and Wyatt each with a stack of assorted coinage, bills and chips before them. Two hands later, the final man called it a night, not a moment too soon for his aching wallet.

Doc had been drinking steadily and enthusiastically. His coat had been discarded, lying across the back of his chair and the man himself was sprawled comfortably with one booted foot braced against a leg of the table and his chair rocked slightly back. His eyes were still bright with mischief as he glanced from his cards to Wyatt.

“You play much better than that first hand implied.”

“You’ve got either the devil’s own luck or you’re not as drunk as you look,” Wyatt said, gathering up the cards. “What’s your story, Doc?”

“Drunken confessions are, as yet, beyond me. Buy me another drink and I’ll gladly enlighten you.” Doc smiled, this time with something that might’ve been sincerity. “I won’t ask you to return the favor.”

Wyatt scowled at him, reaching for the cigar resting by his elbow. “Oh?”

“You’ve been gambling your way across Texas, after all.” The smile was hidden behind Doc’s cup. “People do talk.”

“And what do they say?” Wyatt occupied himself with dealing, cigar firmly between his teeth.

“That you like to take risks,” Doc said. “It seems to be true, if one can judge from such limited exposure. I also note that the rumors regarding your taste in women seem to be lacking exaggeration.”

Wyatt jerked his eyes away from the pretty girl assisting the piano player to glare at Doc. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That you show a certain appreciation for the dark-haired young lady turning the music for that dreadful piano player.”

“How the hell would you know? She’s behind you!”

Doc laughed softly, sorting the cards in his hand. “Her somewhat attractive reflection can be clearly seen in the window to your left. I was curious as to what was keeping your full attention from our little game.”

Wyatt turned, finding that there was indeed a window to his left. The girl was the second reflection he looked for, after reassuring himself that Doc couldn’t possibly have been looking at his cards using that same reflection. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”

“I do,” Doc said. “I see myself as a rare and precious masterpiece, but don’t we all?” He smiled again, apparently a habitual expression, and gestured to Wyatt. “My drink?”

Annoyance warred with amusement, but amusement won out. Wyatt burst into laughter. “I’ll buy you that drink, and another if it’ll buy me that drunken confession.”

“Make it three,” Doc said. He sank even further down in his chair, looking at Wyatt over the top of his cards. “That’ll make my stories almost truthful.”

It took rather less than a week for word to spread that playing poker with Wyatt Earp or Doc Holliday was a risky proposition, and only two days more for the locals to discover that faro gave odds that were even worse.

“Of course it does. Faro favors the banker. Always.” Doc was propped lazily at one end of the bar, ignoring the glares aimed at his back from the poker game he had just abandoned. “Only a fool puts his money on a game that relies solely on luck.”

“So why do you play?” Wyatt slid a drink toward his new friend. “If only fools indulge?”

“I don’t play.” Doc laughed softly. “I run the bank. That’s not playing, that’s a sure thing.”

“If it’s a sure thing, why don’t I see you do it more often?” Wyatt was genuinely curious, wondering what it was that kept Doc at the gambling tables. The younger man won just a little more often than he lost, but the money didn’t seem to be the point, much as Doc appeared to enjoy it.

“Because a sure thing is a boring thing, Wyatt.” Doc lifted his drink in a mock salute. “Life is for the living, and what’s more lively than a gamble?”

“You’re awful young to be so cynical.” Wyatt gestured for another drink, this one for himself.

“Says the old man. I call thee hypocrite. You can’t have more than a few years on me, Wyatt. A few years at most.”

“My point stands,” Wyatt said. He turned to give Doc a searching look. “What’s your game, and don’t give me any of that folderol about life and your place in it.”

“I gave you my life story just the other night. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten it already?”

“It wasn’t much of a story, Doc. ‘I was a dentist, but there’s more enjoyment, and more money, to be found in gambling.’ Come on. There’s got to be more to it than that.”

Doc looked at him gravely, raising one eyebrow. “There does? I thought it summed things up succinctly. Did you want to hear the touching story of the time I lost my puppy when I was just a lad? Or how about the lovely, yet entirely fictional, young lady that I jilted at the altar?”

“No woman would be fool enough to believe she’d get you that far,” Wyatt said. He shook his head, heaving a sigh of resignation. “Why’re you so set on being difficult? What’s wrong with just being – friendly?”

“Friendly?” The word seemed a foreign one, falling from Doc’s tongue with a mixture of scorn and disbelief. “Why… are you offering to be _friends_ with me, Wyatt?”

“Is there something wrong with that?” Wyatt picked up his own drink, shooting a wry smile at Doc.

“Only with your sanity, or obvious lack thereof.” Doc tilted his head curiously. “Friends,” he said, as if testing the taste of it.

“I take it you don’t have very many of those.”

Doc smiled, finally, showing a hint of teeth as he raised his glass a second time. “No, I can’t say that I do.”

“I suggest you get used to it.”

They leaned together companionably against the bar as Doc gestured for the bartender. The silence was eventually broken by Doc, voice gently contemplative. “This ‘friends’ thing, Wyatt. Is that anything like ‘accomplices’?”

“Don’t push your luck, Doc.” Wyatt gave him an affectionate swat on the shoulder.

“Wouldn’t be me if I didn’t.”

Another week passed in a pleasant and fairly profitable haze of hard liquor, heavy gambling and the occasional fistfight. Poker, faro, wagering on fights and the occasional race, Wyatt was growing to enjoy Doc’s somewhat acerbic company, despite the number of fights said company seemed to cause.

“Do you know, Wyatt, I feel that Fort Griffith is losing some of its appeal,” Doc said. He looked down at the cards spread on the table and the very large pot resting in the middle. A careless gesture with the hand holding his drink took in the entire saloon. “People are becoming somewhat overly familiar, I feel.”

“What makes you say that, Doc?” Wyatt said. There was an air of strained calm about the question. Wyatt wasn’t looking at the cards or the substantial pot. His attention was instead fixed on the guns aimed at Doc by the angry gamblers across the table.

“Something in the air?” Doc asked. He kicked up one foot, one arm hooked over the back of his tilted chair and the tails of his coat brushing the floor. “Courtesy and manners seem to be lacking in this town, sadly lacking.”

“Do you really think that now’s a good time for a discussion of etiquette?”

“Shut up, both of you.” The man who’d first drawn rose to his feet. “You’ve been cheating us! No one wins that much.”

“Nobody’s been cheating,” Wyatt said. He fought back frustration, taking a slow breath. Politely, he suggested, “If you’ve got a complaint, Al, get a new deck, take a seat and work on winning your money back.”

“We’re going to take our money, and then we’re going to run you two out of here. Grab the money, Jack.”

Jack reached for the pot, only to have it explode in his face. Wyatt leaned out of the way, arms coming up to shield his face as coins and chips went flying. Al dove for cover bringing up his gun as everyone in the room was suddenly focused on the noise and chaos of their disagreement.

Doc’s second shot forced Al behind another table as the people there scattered. He took advantage of that to draw his second gun, the first having been retrieved from the pocket of his coat when’d rocked so carelessly back in his chair.

Saloon patrons scattered, the piano player and his music girl retreating sensibly behind the instrument as the bartender shouted for the sheriff. Jack, nursing a few nasty scrapes on his face and arms from the cash shrapnel, brought his own gun to bear, only to find himself suddenly on the floor, jaw throbbing from an impact with Wyatt’s fist.

“What the devil is going on here?” The roar of disapproval came from the back of the saloon where the sheriff had been talking peaceably with the saloon owner.

“I do believe that’s our cue to vacate the premises.” Doc already had the closest remnants of the pot scooped into his pockets. “Wyatt?”

“Yeah, _yeah_.” Wyatt grabbed Jack’s gun and caught his coat as Doc flung it at him. “Come on!”

They left Fort Griffith just a few steps ahead of the sheriff, risking a stop at the lodging house just long enough to sweep up the most portable of their possessions.

It was a long ride to the outside of the sheriff’s jurisdiction. A cold night, unfamiliar ground and Doc had lifted a bottle of some rotgut from the nearest table and was drinking as they went.

“So. This is what friends do, Wyatt?” Despite the darkness, it was fairly easy to tell that Doc was laughing.

“Remind me never to get run out of town with you again.”

“But Wyatt, then what are friends for?”


End file.
